


Smoke In the Hotel Hall

by NorthwesternInsanity



Series: Hotel Disasters One-Shots [1]
Category: Deep Purple, Music RPF
Genre: Caught in the shower, Evacuation, Gen, Humor, crackfic, fire alarm, unpleasant wakeup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: On a leg of the tour with increasing tensions, Mark III Deep Purple gets to experience a less common form of excitement on the road, and find out the answer to "what do you do when the fire alarm in the hotel goes off at an ungodly hour of the morning?" Perhaps the real question however is: what set it off, and who's going to be in the hot seat for it later?





	Smoke In the Hotel Hall

Glenn Hughes jumped a foot in the air off the sofa in the hotel room as a loud klaxon wailed down the halls of the hotel out of nowhere, piercing the relative quietness of the night.

"What _is_ that?!" he shouted reflexively, not even aware of it coming out before regaining his senses. "What the bloody hell _is_ that?!"

As he finished shouting, a strobe on the wall in the corner began flashing blinding light through the room.

Glenn launched himself up -voluntarily this time -and ran across the room to the front. With one hand, he yanked open the door to the hall to make sure the pandemonium really was what he thought it was, and whilst looking outside at the flashing strobes and other people poking their heads out of their rooms, pulled open the bathroom door that was just inside with his other hand. 

That unmuffled the sound of the shower running, and a very confused and startled David Coverdale. Who was in the shower, because he'd decided to procrastinate it to being the last thing he did before going to bed after staying up to early morning -if everything had gone to plan. It certainly wasn't going to plan now.

"Glenn," he gasped, peeping around the curtain, "is that the fire alarm?"

"I believe so -what else do they put into hotels with a flashing light that makes so much bloody racket?" Glenn sniffed the air out in the hall, catching a faint, but still potent scent of smoke. "And not only do I think it's a true one, but whatever's burning is in some room on this floor. Say, David, do you smell smoke too?"

"What am I to do?" David wailed.

"Hop on out, dry off quick, throw on some clothes, grab whatever essentials you need -and just walk on out of here," Glenn suggested with a shrug.

"I don't have my bag packed in a way I can just grab it, and I haven't got all the conditioner out of my hair!"

Glenn started to smirk.

"It's not funny, Glenn!"

The very second he said it, a much higher pitched and aggravating bell began ringing from a metallic, grey circle fixed to the wall beside the flashing light -likely there as a safety feature for guests who slept extra heavily. In a hyperstimulated state from the cocaine he'd been snorting, Glenn couldn't bear it. Indeed, if it had been funny before, it wasn't at all now.

"AHH!" he cried, clapping his hands over his ears. "Oh, God -HELP! Bloody fucking...! I'm sure it'll rinse out later, or you can just wash it again when we get back inside -and your stuff will be fine! Just throw something on and let's get the hell out of here!"

By now, David had turned the water off, losing the shield of the shower noise. The bathroom tile seemed to scoop every bit of the bell noise that got through the doorway, bounce it off, and send it swirling around the room in echoes. He couldn't stand it either. Glenn didn't have to finish telling him before his mind jumped from the horror of being caught soaking wet and whether he needed to take anything with him down to a single track of drying off enough to not slip on the hard floors and getting away from the noise, the world's perception of him once he got outside be damned.

Down one floor, there was a crash, a momentary discord of static, then a hissing of low profanities as the alarm startled Ian Paice out of a sound sleep. In an overzealous reach for his glasses on the nightstand, he painfully slammed his knuckles into the lamp and knocked it over. Which fell into the alarm clock, setting the AM radio that wasn't dialed into a station within range buzzing until he blindly slapped the button to turn it off in the dark.

Jon Lord, who had been having difficulty falling asleep and had only succeeded in finally falling asleep less than an hour ago, moaned softly and turned his head sideways on his pillow to look in the direction of the other bed. He winced as the strobe then hit his eyes.

"Paicey? Tell me this isn't real... Who would possibly set off the fire alarm at 4:00 o'clock in the morning?"

Paicey groaned, sitting up, setting the lamp back up and switching it on with one hand and putting his glasses on with the other, making the rest of the room and Jon visible. 

"At least this isn't broken. Though I hate to say I think it is real. And I'm not sure I want to know what set it off at this hour. I suppose we'll go down to the lobby and see though. At least if it's a false alarm, they should be able to figure it out and then they might send us back up here to ignore it-"

That was when the bell within the room kicked in.

"-Oh, COME _ON!_ As if that obnoxious disaster in the hall wasn't loud enough! Perhaps it's best we go outside and stay there if we're going to be dealing with that racket then!"

Jon looked back over, now with tears in his eyes, and between that and his sleepy, bed-disheveled appearance, he could have been the poster child of misery.

Unfortunately, Paicey knew that Jon was miserable. He'd only just recovered from being sick, and they hadn't been having a particularly pleasant few days following that. A tussle with management over scheduling flights earlier in the week had left Ritchie indiscriminately mad at the whole world. By the time they'd gotten to the hotel tonight following a backstage argument, Jon's massive emotions were all over the place with exhaustion. Trouble sleeping, with this unexpected surprise in top of it all, was anything but helpful in dealing with it.

"This tour cannot be remotely normal if our lives depended on it," he moaned, climbing up out of bed and stuffing his feet into his shoes. "I'm so tired."

"So am I." Paicey found the room keys on the sink in the bathroom, and grabbing jackets just in case if it started raining while they were outside, ushered Jon out the door into the hall and closed it behind them before putting his arm around Jon protectively as they were faced with pandemonium of guests stumbling out of their rooms in night clothes, even more disoriented than them, it seemed. The flashing lights of the alarm strobes probably had a bigger effect on regular guests, who didn't perform under bright, moving stage lights almost every night.

"So am I, but there's not much we can do about this. You didn't set it off, and neither did I. Let's get out of this noise."

It was a struggle, squeezing down the stairwell with everyone wanting to push past each other, being too stunned from having just woken up to think about trying to go down in any orderly fashion. Finally, Jon and Paicey slipped out the side door together, both blowing out sighs as they were freed of the claustrophobic chaos.

They met David and Glenn a few steps down the wall from outside that door. Glenn leaned against the side of the building with a perturbed expression, one arm up against the building and resting his head on his hand, his other hand on his hip, with his legs casually crossed at the ankle. David stood next to him looking like a sad puppy that had just been left outside in the rain for a couple of hours -hair wet and sticking to the sides of his face. He was in his robe, with a towel around his neck and his arms folded over his chest. His head hung forward as if he wanted to hide from the whole world.

"Never a dull moment, is it?" Glenn quipped.

"I suppose you could say that again," Paicey groaned. "At least we're not ever bored, though it'd be nicer if it weren't at this hour, but it is what it is. Hopefully the fire department should get here soon and declare it a false alarm, and-"

"Someone did _something_ ," said David bitterly. "You could smell smoke coming from someone's room on our hall."

Jon let off something between a groan and a whimper.

David stepped forward and put a hand on Jon's shoulder with sympathy.

"It's not necessarily a true fire that made the smoke to set it off -it could still be alright," Paicey tried.

"Maybe one of us could go walk around the building and see if you can figure out what's going on?" asked David. "If it was an actual fire, surely it would be visible from some side of the building by now. I'm not going around when I'm soaking wet though."

"Alright, how about we go together?" Paicey asked Jon. He was hoping to distract him from melting down and embarrassing himself.

Jon nodded, and the two made their way through scatter of guests around the building until they had circled around to the other side of the building.

"Do you see any third floor windows with smoke?" Paicey pulled his glasses off, cleaned them on his shirt, and put them back on for another look.

"I don't see any," Jon murmured.

"Neither do I. It's probably not that serious then."

"Just somebody up to no good at this hour of the morning."

"Unfortunately so. Well then, let's go back."

"That should mean we'll at least be back inside then soon," sighed Jon. "Reasons to be grateful."

"Let's _hope_ we'll be back inside soon."

Paicey and Jon relayed what they'd seen to David and Glenn when they got back around.

"So that's good news then," quipped Glenn, "tell me something else that's good."

"Jon, you can go back to bed soon," David offered.

"If he can sleep this time." Paicey turned to Jon. "Maybe this has tired you out enough to make it happen."

Jon folded his hands together, miming begging. "Please." He pointed to David. "You'll be able to get back in the shower and finish soon."

"True, and perhaps it's a good thing that we've got warm temperatures here with you standing outside soaking wet," Paicey added.

David groaned, shaking his head. Even Jon and Glenn shuddered at that one. Standing outside in warm, late spring temperatures wasn't so bad. The idea of being outside in the dead of winter at night was bad in itself, let alone soaking wet in nothing but a robe and shower shoes. Not to mention a sick singer was the last thing they needed on top of their other troubles this tour. It was lucky enough he hadn't caught what Jon had the week prior.

David gestured to Paicey. "Because it's not serious, the smoke didn't get to a point to get you ill."

"Thankfully."

"That's all good." Jon was starting to calm down with banter to distract him from how unwell he was feeling. "It could definitely be worse."

"I should have probably put on shoes before coming out here," realized Glenn, adding to the list of troubles instead. "The gravel from the garden isn't too nice to stand on here."

David sighed.

"That is not helpful, Glenn."

"That's not fun for you, but at least it's not tragic." Despite his effort to stay positive, it was becoming obvious Paicey was tired and starting to get ticked off. "Just as long as none of us are hurt if it is serious. David, you and Glenn were on the same floor as Ritchie. Did either of you see him come out of his room? Where is he out here?"

Silence fell as they exchanged tense looks.

"I've been out here a good while, and I was one of the first out in the hall, so I'd have seen him if he came out of his room while we were up there," Glenn spoke up.

"And I certainly haven't seen him since we got outside," David added. "If he came out this exit, we'd have probably seen him."

Jon raised his eyebrows.

"And you went walking around and didn't see him in case he went out another door," Glenn continued, pointing at Paicey, who shook his head.

"No, I didn't see him anywhere."

"Neither did I." Jon met eyes with David as he looked up. They both turned in unison to meet Glenn and Paicey's eyes just as the two squinted with suspicion, the latter raising a pointed index finger as the pieces came together.

A resolute quiet hung in the air just as the fire department disabled the alarm inside.

"Well," said Jon with a sigh, "It's almost certainly not anything too serious in that case then, but I think we've got our culprit."


End file.
